


The Orb

by aflyingcontradiction



Series: Encounters of a kind [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ableism, Action/Adventure, Children, Disability, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 15:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12436023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyingcontradiction/pseuds/aflyingcontradiction
Summary: Four children from the slums discover a secret at the bottom of the local sinkhole that may change their lives and the face of the world.





	The Orb

“Woah! That is weird!” came the voice of Ana from halfway down the hole. 

“See? I told you! Didn’t I tell you?” responded Matteo. Between his breaking voice and his excitement, he sounded like an oversized chipmunk. 

Izzy would have made fun of him, but right now she was way too annoyed at her friends: “See? We can’t see shit up here!”

Izzy was perched on one of the crumbling arms of the Azevedo together with Ana’s little brother Raul. Once, years before any of them had been born, the Azevedo had reached high into the sky, soaking up the energy of the sun for the people inhabiting it. But after the big earthquake, the city had never rebuilt the arcologies on the outskirts and soon their skeletons had been surrounded by hundreds of corrugated steel shacks - like mushrooms sprouting from a rotting corpse. 

Izzy could only imagine what the Southern Azevedo Arcology would have looked like in its heyday. Even her mum had never known it as anything but a pile of rubble in various states of decay and one remaining arm precariously bridging the giant sinkhole, another souvenir of the devastating earthquake. 

Izzy’s mum would have had a fit if she knew Izzy was hanging around the sinkhole. But it wasn’t like she would ever find out, anyway. Besides, Izzy had a good reason to come here: Early this morning, right after her mother had gone to work, Matteo had burst into their shack: “IZZY! Wake up! You’ve got to come see this!”

Matteo lived alone right by the side of the sinkhole, in a hovel so small he could barely turn around in it. When he wasn’t in the city begging or pickpocketing, he was using the sinkhole as his own private playground. So when a weird glow had appeared all the way at the bottom of the hole, Matteo had been the first to notice. He had immediately made sure his friends knew about it, too. He had carried Izzy piggyback for half an hour to the shop Ana’s grandma ran, where they had spent precious minutes convincing Ana to come (“So there’s a weird glowy thing. Great. But some of us have to work, you know!”) 

Eventually Matteo had made Ana so curious she had decided she could sneak out, but Raul had to come or her Grandma would flay her alive. She was already going to be in a world of trouble just for sneaking off at all. 

At first, Izzy had been excited about their adventure and flattered that Matteo had told her first. But now she was pissed off and bored and couldn’t have cared less if Matteo and Ana fell right into their fucking sinkhole! 

She should have expected this. Of course, climbing down the sinkhole was a dangerous task even for someone with four strong limbs! But it wasn’t fair! It sounded like Ana and Matteo were looking at something incredibly cool and here she was, sitting up at the top with Raul. Not that Raul wasn’t nice and all, but he was also seven years old, never spoke to anyone and currently seemed to be busy fiddling with the cheap light-up toy Ana had bought him.  
Click - blue - click - red - click - green. Click - click - click - click.

“We’re bored to death up here!” shouted Izzy as she scooted ever so slightly toward the edge of the bridge. Below her, everything was dark. No glow, no nothing. Just an abyss that may as well have been bottomless from all she could tell. She turned to Raul.

“Don’t you think it’s unfair that they’re having all the fun?” 

Raul didn’t look up from his toy, but he very briefly shrugged his shoulders in a way that made Izzy think he had heard her.

“Oh, right, you don’t care.” She turned back to the hole: “AT LEAST TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON, ASSHOLES!”

“Oh, will you relax?” shouted Ana. “We’ll be back in a second.”

It was easy for Ana to talk! She didn’t know what it was like! Izzy had probably wasted years of her life waiting at the sidelines for people who’d ‘be back in a second’.  
She had half a mind to leave, but they’d probably be back by the time she had even dragged herself off the Azevedo. And besides, who’d look after Raul.

True to their word, Izzy’s friends returned soon after, completely out of breath and yet somehow managing to shout across each other between gasps. Izzy barely understood a word they were saying. She looked at Raul. He was gripping his toy so hard his knuckles had turned white and his shoulders looked so painfully tense it hurt just to watch.

“Oh, shut up!” Izzy commanded and her friends fell silent. Raul’s shoulders fell and his hands relaxed, as he continued to fiddle with his toy. Click. Click. Click.

“I can’t understand a damn thing if you both try to talk at once.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” said both children in unison.

“Ana can tell me,” Izzy decided. After all, she had already heard Matteo’s version this morning and none of it had made any sense at all.

“Okay, so there’s this weird ball down there,” said Ana. “But it’s HUGE!”

“Building-sized!” Matteo chimed in.

“She wanted me to tell her!”

“Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

“Anyway, there’s this ball, right? And it keeps flashing … well, no, pulsing … with light. And there’s some weird kind of scaffolding around it, but we couldn’t get close enough to see that properly.”

“Yeah, there’s not enough footholds down that far. We’d need rope.”

“Woah,” said Izzy, as an image of what her friends were describing appeared in front of her mind’s eye. “So what do you think it is?”

“Maybe they’re experimenting with some new kind of building? Part of some new arcology system?” Ana said.

“Arcology system? Down in the sinkhole?” Matteo said, looking very skeptical.

“Yeah, no way. If they’re hiding it down there, it’s got to be something they want to keep secret. Or something really dangerous. Or both,” said Izzy.

Matteo’s mouth fell open: “Do you think it’s some kind of weapon? Like a bomb or something?”

“A bomb?” gasped Ana. “That size? If that thing went off, it would blow the whole neighbourhood to bits!”

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” said Izzy. 

She hadn’t forgotten the horrible night some years ago when the police had set a house on fire for no reason anyone knew of and two dozen shacks had burnt to the ground before the fire had been stopped. The fire had left six people dead, countless others with lasting scars and had robbed entire families of even the few possessions they’d had before. To this day, there had never been an apology. Nobody outside the neighbourhood seemed to know or care it had happened. And Izzy had seen the way the people from the city proper looked at her people. There was no doubt in Izzy’s mind that the powers that be would not bat an eye if her neighbourhood went up in smoke and ashes. They’d probably be popping champagne bottles!

“If it really is a weapon, we will have to warn people,” said Ana thoughtfully.

“Nah, Ana, you will have to warn people. People don’t listen to smelly orphans and cripples.”

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Sorry, Izzy, no offence intended.”

“I’m not going to go shouting about bombs when we don’t even know what’s going on,” said Ana. “People will think I’m nuts.”

“I’d love to get a closer look at that thing,” said Matteo slowly, looking back down the hole with a frown. “You could borrow some rope from your grandma, couldn’t you, Ana?”

Ana’s eyes widened. “Oh shit! Grandma! What time is it?”

The sun was already so high in the sky it had to be nearing noon.

“She is going to skin me alive! Raul! Come on!” Ana grabbed her brother by the arm and ran along the Azevedo bridge with so little care that even Matteo bit his knuckles in fear. When they had made it safely off the bridge, both Izzy and Matteo breathed a sigh of relief.

“The absolute madwoman! What was she thinking?”

“The abyss has nothing on Ana’s grandmother,” quipped Izzy and smiled when she saw Matteo grin. 

“I’m nearly out of cash, I’m heading to the station!” said Matteo, as they watched Ana and Raul disappear in the distance.

“Can you take me home first?”

Matteo frowned: “You’re not coming?”

Izzy shrugged. She’d only gone to the station with Matteo twice so far and she hadn’t liked it much either time.

“You know, if it’s that creepy guy that’s bothering you, if he gets in your face again, I can totally shank him.” Matteo pulled a knife and stabbed the air with such earnestness that Izzy couldn’t help but snigger.

“Or you could not get yourself killed and just take me home.”

“You’re no fun.”

With a practised movement, he hauled Izzy onto his shoulders and balanced along the bridge. 

They were back at Izzy’s shack in no time at all. Matteo gently lowered her onto the ground where she picked up the old crutches she had left behind and hauled herself painfully to her feet.

“See you tomorrow, I suppose. If we haven’t all exploded by then,” Matteo said as he turned to leave.

“You could stay.” 

“Can’t. Gotta work.”

“How about going out tonight?”

“Your mum won’t care?”

“My mum won’t be back till tomorrow. She’s with Eduardo.” Izzy mimed a retch.

“Hey, he bought you the dress you’re wearing, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, so what? He’s old and gross and awful. Mum doesn’t even like him. She just lets him screw her for the gifts.”

“Don’t judge. Even I’d let him screw me for new clothes. Not like I’ve got much virtue left to lose in these!” He spread his legs to show Izzy a large hole in the crotch of his trousers. He wasn’t wearing anything under them.

With a shriek, Izzy covered her eyes: “You’re gross, Matteo!”

“Yeah, but you love me anyway. See you tonight!”

Izzy dragged herself into the shack and dropped onto her mattress in the corner. The shack was dark, stiflingly hot and empty. What was she even going to do in here for hours all on her own? Maybe she should have gone to the station with Matteo after all. But last time had been too scary. 

At least now she had the party to look forward to in a few short hours. Izzy closed her eyes for a nap.

\--------------------------------------------------

Izzy was awake long before Matteo came to pick her up. When he burst in the door, he was wearing a baseball cap and - to Izzy’s surprise - trousers that, though they looked like they’d been worn by several people before him, were completely hole-free.

“Had a good day then?” asked Izzy.

“Great day! You should’ve come. I was raking in the dough.”

Izzy didn’t know what to say so she just shrugged.

“Eh, nevermind. I’ll buy you a drink! Throw me your sticks and jump on!”

They heard the beats long before they saw the dancers. When Matteo and Izzy reached the football field repurposed for tonight’s revelry, the party was already in full swing. The music was ear shattering and there was barely any space to move. If Matteo hadn’t been with her, Izzy might have stayed on the sidelines, wondering what she had been thinking to come here. She sure as hell couldn’t copy the older girls’ sexy moves with her own wonky hips. 

But Matteo was having none of it. Even with her weight on his back, he slid through the crowd like a snake through water, occasionally using her crutches as weapons.

“HEY! WHAT THE FUCK?”

But they were gone too fast for anyone to do anything about it. In no time at all they had reached the relative safety of the bar. But Matteo didn’t seem to be here just to drink. With a silly flourish that made Izzy giggle, Matteo tipped his cap and asked: “Wanna dance?”

“Hell yeah!”

Before meeting Matteo, Izzy had always just assumed dancing was not for her. Sure, she’d spent many a night skulking near one street party or another when her mum was off with some guy and the empty shack seemed much more terrifying than the crowds. But then Matteo had come into her life and dragged her right to the centre of the dance floor.

Within seconds Izzy was squealing with delight and singing along with the music at the top of her voice while Matteo skilfully twirled her this way and that without ever, even for one second, dropping her.

Whenever she had a second’s break, she could see the people dancing right near them stare and she knew they must look very odd, but she didn’t give a shit. This was way too fun!

After two songs, she held up a hand to make Matteo stop.

“I need a drink,” she gasped.

“Sure!” Matteo slapped some money on the bar. It was just enough for a can of coke, which they shared leaning against the bar, watching the dancers. 

Matteo had just grabbed the can for another sip when the crowd gave a collective “WOAH!” so loud it drowned out the music and made Izzy flinch. It seemed Matteo had jumped, too, because he was now doubled over coughing, his eyes full of tears from the coke that had clearly gone down the wrong pipe.

“What’s … going … on?” Matteo choked out between coughs.

“No idea, I didn’t see … woah!”

Izzy’s eyes grew wide. Right from where the crowd was thickest, a man had rocketed up into the sky where he had made several backflips only to land back amid the awe-filled mass of onlookers. A second later he appeared again. His legs were glimmering in the spotlight like gemstones. Izzy knew she looked like a slack-jawed idiot, staring like that, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man.

“That’s what you were all woah-ing about? You made me waste half a can of coke over that? What a show-off!” Matteo said angrily, waving at the man who was still doing trick jumps in time with the beat.

“He’s amazing, though! Look at his legs! Look at him go!”

“Big deal! Anyone could do that!”

“I’ve never seen anyone do that, though!” protested Izzy.

“That’s because nobody we know could afford fucking robo-legs!” Matteo sounded furious now. “Who does that fucking jackass even think he is? It’s bad enough with these people coming to our neighbourhood and invading our parties just so they can gawk at us like we’re fucking zoo animals just because we weren’t born with a golden spoon shoved up our ass. And that arsehole doesn’t even have the decency to mingle like a normal person, no, he’s got to be all fucking flashy and rub it in!”

“Matteo…”

Izzy had seen her friend go off like this before and it was rarely a good sign.

“No! I could feed myself for a decade with the money those legs cost! And I bet he had two perfectly fine legs to begin with! I bet he just got those for show!”

Izzy reached for Matteo’s shoulders, but he shrugged her off with an angry motion. 

“Matteo, please!”

This wasn’t good! What if he did something stupid? The crowd was enjoying that guy’s show and there were drug dealers and gang members around and plenty of other people with guns and knives, too! This wasn’t the moment to make yourself unpopular! He’d get himself killed! If only Ana were here! She always knew how to make people calm down. But there was no way Izzy could extract herself from the crowd on her own, much less reach Ana’s house in time and Matteo was already storming toward the centre of the action in a huff.

“MATTEO! DAMN IT! WAIT!”

Izzy grabbed her crutches from where they were leaning against the bar and dragged herself through the partying crowd but people weren’t making room for her and she couldn’t whack them on the shins with her crutches without losing balance herself. Any moment now there would be angry voices from the centre of the crowd. The music would cut out and there would be the horrible sound of Matteo screaming in pain as the angry party-goers descended on him. And she couldn’t do a damn thing about it!

But the music kept on playing. The scream never came. Instead, Matteo burst out of the crowd, grinning like a maniac.

“Jump on! Hurry! We’re going!”

“What did you do?” gasped Izzy.

“I’ll tell you later! Let’s go!”

\--------------------------------------------------

Matteo and Izzy reached the streets running past the football field. The music was still thumping in the air when Matteo set Izzy down.

“What did you do?” she asked again. “Matteo! Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid!”

“Hah, no, I grabbed the douchebag’s wallet! It was just hanging out of his pants, see, and I waited until he was on the ground for a second and then POW!” Matteo’s hand shot forward in imitation of his great feat. 

“And he didn’t see you?” 

Matteo scoffed. “Pah, see me? He was way too busy making an ass of himself. I was long gone before he was even in the air again.”

Izzy couldn’t help but frown at Matteo: “You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“When did you get all concerned about me stealing. I thought that was Ana’s job.”

“It’s different in the city!”

“Why’s that then?”

Izzy didn’t know what to say. Of course, it wasn’t different in the city. But she wasn’t about to tell Matteo that the images of his face beaten to a bloody pulp were still flitting through her mind. 

“It just is,” she said eventually.

“Sure.” Matteo rolled his eyes. “Now stop whining and let’s look at what we actually got. Might be more than your mum gets from Eduardo even. That guy looked seriously loaded!”

“Yeah, bet he won’t even have any cash on him. Those types never do,” Izzy grumbled but she still looked on with bated breath as Matteo slowly inched the wallet open. 

The first thing she saw was a curious glint, the origin of which she could not make out. Then Matteo held the wallet up to catch the light from the football field. He gasped. So did Izzy. They stared at each other in silence.

“Oh shit,” muttered Matteo.

“Matteo, that’s a badge in there.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“You’ve got to give it back!”

“How?”

“Just sneak back on the dance floor and drop it somewhere. He’ll think he lost it himself!”

“Izzy, my fingerprints are all over that thing! My sweat! My skin! There’s probably scanning technology in the wallet itself! They probably already know … Fuck, he didn’t look like an undercover cop! They always try to blend in! Always! Why was he a fucking cop? Izzy, what do I do? They’ll kill me!”

“Say you found it!”

“Have you seen what I look like? They’ll never believe me!”

“Maybe … maybe it’s not a cop badge.”

“What the fuck do you think it looks like then?” snapped Matteo.

“No, hear me out!” said Izzy, trying hard not to tear up, even though Matteo’s anger cut her like a knife. It wasn’t her fault! “Maybe it’s just an ID badge for some company or - I don’t know, some fancy club or something.”

With a shaking hand, Matteo brought the badge closer to his eyes.

“It does look kind of weird,” he said hopefully. “What does it say, Izzy?”

Now it was Izzy’s turn to snap: “You know I can’t read, dumbass!”

“Shit. We’ll need …”

“Ana.”

\--------------------------------------------------

A minute later they were standing by the back of the shop in front of the storage shed, where they knew Ana and Raul slept to guard their grandmother’s belongings. Matteo knocked once, then drew his hand back to knock a second time but the door burst open before he could. An angry Ana stood in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket, eyes bloodshot, cheeks trembling slightly with the pressure her teeth were exerting on each other. Izzy spotted Raul hiding behind her legs. He was wrapped in what looked like all the winter coats Ana’s family owned and was wearing a pair of old headphones, trailing their frayed cable behind him.

“Do you know what time it is?” growled Ana.

“Sorry, we really didn’t want to wake you up, but we really, really need your help,” said Izzy, gasping for breath between words.

“Oh, don’t worry!” said Ana in a pretend pleasant tone, “You didn’t wake me up. I’ve spent the past five hours trying to stop Raul from going batshit because somebody,” she glared at the two of them, “absolutely has to party till 3 in the fucking morning without any regard whatsoever for the people who’d quite like to not be kept up by that shit you call music!”

Izzy hadn’t noticed it before, but Ana was right: They could still hear the music booming from the football field several streets over. With each beat, Raul clamped the headphones harder to his ears.

“Can’t your grandma help?” asked Izzy. 

It was clearly the wrong thing to ask. Ana let out a shrill laugh that made Raul flinch: “What? Her? Oh no, the lady of the manor is fast asleep, of course. Apparently beating the shit out of me is tiring.”

“Oh no! I’m sorry, Ana!” whispered Izzy, trying to see if she could spot the marks of the beating. 

“Yeah, sorry,” muttered Matt, looking very sheepish.

Ana’s face softened: “It’s okay. I’m just tired. So what’s the matter?”

“We did something stupid,” Matteo started. 

Izzy glared at him. “We?”

“Okay, I did something stupid. I stole a guy’s wallet and he has this badge in there and we think he might be a cop or maybe it’s nothing but you can read and we can’t, so …” Matteo said all of this in one breath, then gasped for air as he handed Ana the wallet with the badge. 

She looked at it for a moment, frowned, then said: “Okay, that’s weird.”

“What?” asked Izzy and Matteo in unison.

“Well, these up here aren’t proper letters. Maybe it’s a different language or a code or something but it’s definitely not our alphabet! But the rest of it looks like it’s some kind of military thing.”

“Military? That guy didn’t look like military!” protested Matteo.

“Well, it would explain the legs,” said Izzy, looking again at the badge. The letters that Ana hadn’t been able to read shimmered oddly in the light coming from the shed. 

“I bet that guy’s superior is going to be pissed at him. They must have rules against slumming it, right?”

“Unless he was supposed to be here!” said Ana, looking suddenly terrified. “Maybe they,” she pointed at the shimmering script on the badge, “whoever they are have something to do with that weird orb down in the sinkhole.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, Izzy, it just makes sense!” said Matteo, looking as excited as Ana looked scared. “That weird ball appears and then some military guy with a badge Ana can’t read shows up the day after! The military is probably behind everything! So it is a weapon after all!”

“We don’t know that,” said Ana. “It’s probably just a coincidence.”

“Well, I’m going to go find out. Do you have rope in there?”

“Yeah, but…”

Matteo didn’t wait for Ana to finish her sentence. He pushed her aside to enter the dimly lit shed. 

“Now, wait a minute. You can’t just…” 

But he had already found the rope and before either Izzy or Ana could stop him, he had run off into the night.

Ana looked at Izzy in disbelief: “He’s really going to do it, isn’t he?”

Izzy nodded.

“Oh, fucking hell! He never thinks things through, does he? What if he falls and injures himself? What if that thing down there really is a weapon? The idiot will get himself killed!” 

Ana paused for a beat to look into the distance. “Well, I guess there’s nothing for it. I’m going after him.” She disappeared in the shed and came back with a flashlight. “Can you stay and watch Raul?”

Izzy didn’t even have time to feel resentful that she was once again forced to be the babysitter before Raul made his own thoughts on the matter very clear: He leapt at Ana with a pitiful whimper and grabbed hold of her leg. She tried to pull him off, but her heart was obviously not in it.

“Raul, please, I need to go. Matteo’s going to get himself hurt. You like Matteo, too, don’t you? … You’re going to lose it again, if I leave you here with Izzy, aren’t you? Well, okay, you can come … but you’d better use your own damn legs, I’ll have to carry Izzy.”

“You’re taking me?”

“Of course I’m fucking taking you. No reason for you to stay here if Raul’s coming, is there? Besides, Matteo won’t listen to a word I say! Someone’s going to have to talk to him.”

“But …” Izzy was going to point out that Matteo didn’t listen to her either and that she would just slow Ana down, but before she could, Ana had pulled her onto her back with a painful jerk, grabbed the crutches and started running.

\--------------------------------------------------

They arrived at the sinkhole what felt like an eternity later. Ana was not half as good at carrying Izzy as Matteo. They’d had to stop every few minutes so Izzy could pull herself back and then, of course, Raul had trailed behind and they’d had to wait for him to catch up on his tiny legs or pick up one of the many coats he was still wearing and constantly dropping.

Ana shone her flashlight along the Azevedo. All that greeted them was loneliness and the reflections from what had once been solar panels on the arcology.

“I don’t see him. Do you think he just went home?” Ana pointed the flashlight at the little hovel by the side of the hole. Nothing moved. 

“Or maybe he fell!” said Izzy.

“No! Look!” Ana pointed with her flashlight. A rope was tied to the bridge and it was moving like someone was dangling from it. 

Ana dropped Izzy’s crutches and let Izzy slide to the ground. She raced along the bridge, followed by Raul who was sticking his arms out to keep his balance and Izzy who was scooting along on her backside. 

By the time Izzy had reached Ana, she was already shining her flashlight into the sinkhole. 

“MATTEO!”

“ANA? HELP!”

“Oh shit, he’s hurt,” gasped Izzy. Her eyes wandered down the rope to where she hoped to see him, but the light couldn’t penetrate far enough. What she did spot, however, was that the rope was rubbing back and forth against a rough piece of rock just below where it was attached and had already thinned quite a bit.

“I’M TANGLED!” screamed Matteo.

“DON’T MOVE, ASSHOLE, I’M COMING DOWN!” shouted Ana. She thrust the flashlight into Izzy’s hands. “Raul, you stay here with Izzy. Don’t move a muscle, I’ll be right back. Izzy, if he starts freaking out, try and give him a big bear hug. He likes that. Well … sometimes. But if he doesn’t - just don’t let him hurt himself, okay?”

“Ana, the rope…”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll be back up in a second.” 

As Ana disappeared down the sinkhole, carefully clambering along the familiar footholds, Izzy turned to Raul: “It’s going to be okay.”

Raul did not answer. He did not even look at her. She hadn’t expected him to. She didn’t expect him to believe her either. After all, she was probably more scared than him. 

Izzy leaned over the side of the bridge, just a little bit, just enough so she could see the silhouette of Ana disappearing in the darkness. Soon there was nothing but the quivering rope still see-sawing past the craggy rock. Izzy held her breath. She couldn’t take her eyes off the rope. If it broke, Matteo would fall and maybe he would take Ana with him and she was stuck up here and couldn’t do anything about it. Her fists were clenched so tight her fingernails dug into her flesh. 

Next to her, Raul was rocking back and forth, fiddling with the toy he seemed to have pulled from one of his many coat pockets. Click - blue - click - red - click - green - click - yellow. Click - click - click. Every click was like a hammer, beating on Izzy’s head. She was tempted to grab the toy and chuck it in the sinkhole. But the last thing she needed now was Raul to go berserk. Besides, Ana would kill her if she did that.

Then Ana’s voice came from the distance: “I’VE GOT HIM! HE’S FINE!”

Izzy sighed in relief.

“I’M NOT FINE AT ALL!” protested Matteo.

“HE’S ALL TANGLED AND IT’S HARD TO CLIMB HERE BUT I’LL GET HIM OUT! JUST GIVE ME A …”

Suddenly there was a blaze so bright, Izzy had to close her eyes. At the same time the floor beneath her gave an almighty lurch. Izzy could feel herself sliding off the side of the bridge. Frantically, she scrambled to find something to hold onto, a ledge, a piece of rubble, some protrusion in the wall of the sinkhole, but the only thing her hands found was the hand of Raul and they fell and fell, down the sinkhole. 

It was an odd sensation. At first, Izzy was too panicked to think, but now some of the panic was gone - she was floating? Was this what dying felt like? Was she about to see her life flash before her eyes? And would she feel the impact when they finally reached the bottom? Would it hurt?

And then she landed. And it didn’t hurt a bit. Slowly Izzy opened her eyes. In the bright light surrounding her, she could make out the tiny form of Raul next to her, apparently unconscious. He had lost most of his coats, and his headphones, already on their last leg, had cracked down the middle, but there was no blood. He looked like he was sleeping. A little further away there was a squirming tangle of limbs and rope that looked like Ana and Matteo. 

Izzy pushed herself up and looked around. She didn’t know what she had expected but either the afterlife was completely different from what all the religious types claimed or they had somehow fallen all the way from the Azevedo bridge to the bottom of the sinkhole without hurting themselves. 

The light illuminating the scene was coming from a huge, round building right next to where they had fallen. The facade seemed to be made of something like glass, except it looked like glowing water. Did it feel wet, too? Izzy would have loved to find out, but touching that building was so reckless only Matteo would ever consider it. And speaking of Matteo… 

“Ouch! Get off my leg!” 

“I’m trying, but you’re sitting on my arm, dickwad!”

Somehow Izzy couldn’t imagine heaven involving this much petty squabbling nor hell involving this little torment. They had to be at the bottom of the sinkhole. 

“Ana? Matteo?”

Her friends looked up in surprise as Izzy scooted closer to them.

“Izzy! How did you end up down here?” gasped Matteo, who had finally managed to extract himself from Ana and the rope. “Are you okay?”

“Where’s Raul?”

Izzy pointed him out to Ana who was on her feet so fast Izzy’s eyes could barely follow: “Oh shit! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”

“I think he fainted when we fell. We didn’t come down hard. At least I didn’t. I don’t know how.”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s alive,” said Ana, who was now kneeling next to her brother, her voice thick with relief. As she touched him, his eyes sprang open and he gasped for breath.

Ana immediately scooped him into her arms, smothering the ensuing scream in her shoulder: “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

It seemed Raul was in shock more than anything else. After a moment’s stunned silence, he started to whimper softly into Ana’s chest.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” asked Matteo with a concerned look down at Izzy.

“No, my hands are a bit scratched but that’s all. You?”

“Nope, just my pride. It’s weird.” Matteo looked up. “I can’t even see the top from down here. We should be dead.”

“Don’t jinx it,” snapped Ana. “Now how do we get out of here.”

Izzy scanned the wall of the sinkhole. They looked oddly smooth. Even Ana and Matteo wouldn’t be able to make it up there in a million years, so what chance did she and Raul have.

“We can always worry about that after we’ve figured out what that thing is,” said Matteo, pointing at the bright orb behind them.

Ana’s jaw dropped. “Are - you - FUCKING - kidding me?”

“What?”

“We’re stuck down here because your stupid, reckless ass ran off without thinking. Like you always do! And now you just want to continue where you left off?”

“If you’ve got a better idea, go ahead!”

“No, I don’t have a better fucking idea. You got us into this mess. Now get us the hell out of it or I swear I’ll …”

“You’ll what?”

Raul let out a loud whimper.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Ana, her voice shaking. “But I don’t want to die down here.”

Matteo’s face fell. For the first time since he had run off, he looked truly guilt-stricken. He opened his mouth then closed it again, once, twice, like a fish on land. Izzy guessed that it was an apology that was stuck in his throat.

“We’re not going to die! We’ll find a way out of here!” he finally said, then looked around in desperation. 

Izzy felt bad for him so she said: “Well, they had to get this ball down here somehow, right? And it looks like a building of some sort. Maybe there’s something inside it that will help us get out!”

“Yeah, and if it really is military, they’ll be armed to the teeth and we’ll be shot the moment we get closer. Maybe there are booby-traps, too!” Ana sounded like she was trying to explain that one and one equalled two to a stubborn toddler. It was grating!

“I know!” Izzy snapped. “But I don’t want to wait around down here until whoever this ball belongs to shows up and decides they don’t want us blabbing to the people on the surface!”

“If they do, we can hide!”

“Where?” replied Matteo and Izzy in unison.

Ana looked around, then back at her friends without answering. Izzy hadn’t expected her to, because there was no answer. The bottom of the sinkhole was a smooth circle surrounded by equally smooth walls and every inch of it was brightly lit by the strange giant ball. 

“And even if we manage to hide, we’ll still be stuck down here. We’ll die of thirst!” said Matteo. 

“And whose fault is that, huh?” Ana shot back angrily.

“I know! I know! I fucked up! I’m sorry, okay? But that’s not going to get us out of here!”

“Urgh,” said Ana and let herself drop onto the hard ground. She hugged Raul even tighter to her chest. “Okay. Okay, we can check it out. But let’s be careful about it.”

They approached the orb slowly, adopting the pace of Izzy who was still pulling herself along the ground, as her crutches were nowhere to be seen. As they got within arm’s reach of the orb, there was a strong pulse of light. They all flinched, but nothing else happened.

“Do you think it knows we’re here?” whispered Izzy.

“It’s a building, it doesn’t know things,” answered Ana.

“Are you sure?” 

“I don’t see a door,” said Matteo wandering back and forth in front of the liquid-like facade of the orb. “Maybe you can just wander through.”

Matteo took a deep breath and before either of the girls could stop him, he placed a hand on the strange glowing substance. Izzy and Ana gasped as he pulled back his hand with a “Shit!”

“Are you okay?”

“Are you hurt?”

“No … no, it’s just really cold. Like ice.”

“You scared the shit out of us, asshole,” hissed Ana. “And what are you grinning at anyway?”

Izzy quickly wiped the smile off her face. She had been right: Matteo was the only one reckless enough to simply touch the unknown material. Really, it wasn’t a surprise. They were only in this mess because Matteo never thought before he acted. Not when he’d climbed straight down the sinkhole. Not when he’d stolen the wallet…

“Hold on a second! Matteo! Do you still have the wallet?”

“Huh?”

“The wallet that you stole! With the badge in it!”

He pulled it out of his pocket. Izzy pulled herself up by his shoulders and grabbed the wallet.  
“I’m just wondering if …” 

She scooted closer to the wall of the orb and started passing the badge back and forth in front of it. A spotlight appeared on the wall and followed the badge. Izzy held the badge still for a second. The spotlight grew and then - “Woah!” gasped Matteo - melted away to form an opening in the liquid.

“How did you figure that out?” whispered Ana, her face awe-stricken. 

Izzy shrugged.

“That was really clever!” 

“Don’t sound so surprised, Ana,” said Izzy but she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself.

\--------------------------------------------------

The children entered the building, Izzy pulling herself along next to Matteo, Ana walking behind them holding Raul by her hand.

As they stepped into the glowing orb, an icy gust enveloped them, making Izzy shiver. She hadn’t even noticed that she was wet with sweat before. Now she felt like she was about to turn into an icicle. She would have loved to wrap her arms around herself like Matteo was now doing, but then how would she have moved?

“Wow, it’s like a freezer in here!” said Matteo. His breath formed little clouds as he spoke.

“The light’s kind of nice, though,” said Ana. She looked a little dazed. Raul, too, was looking around himself with a rather groggy expression.

There was something about that light - she hadn’t noticed it before when it was shining in the darkness of the sinkhole, but now that everything around them was bathed in it, she realised how odd it was. She’d never seen any artificial light shine so softly before. It made her want to lie down and rest. But she couldn’t do that now. Someone might catch them sneaking about. They might freeze to death!

“Let’s keep going!”

The hallway they were walking down was completely empty. All the doors leading off it seemed to be made of the same material as the outside of the building. Matteo held up the badge to the first door they reached. It melted away to let them into a large room full of weird metal structures. They entered.

“What do you think those are?” said Matteo, letting his hand trail along a metal bar.

“Not ladders or climbing hooks, that’s for sure. Keep moving,” responded Ana. “And keep your hands to yourself, you don’t want to set something off. That goes for you, too, Raul!”

Raul was walking toward a strange sculpture at the back of the room. It kept flashing in different colours, a little like Raul’s toy, except the flashing was much more rapid and there seemed to be dozens upon dozens of different hues. At the centre of the sculpture - was it a sculpture? Or machinery? - there seemed to be some kind of panel.

“Raul. Come back here! Now!” 

But he wasn’t listening. Ana’s eyes widened as he laid his hand on a metal circle embedded in the sculpture.

“RAUL!” She sprinted through the room to reach for him, but her feet got caught on a bar running along the floor. Matteo tried to catch her, but he wasn’t fast enough. Izzy flinched in anticipation a second before Ana hit the floor and slid face first across it to come to a stop at Raul’s feet.

“Ow, fuck!” she whimpered.

“Oh shit, do you think they heard that?”

Matteo had barely stopped talking when the light changed. It had not gotten brighter just somehow, Izzy did not know how, more aggressive, biting. She was definitely not sleepy anymore!

“Yeah, they definitely heard that. Come on! Let’s get out of here!”

They turned toward the door, but someone was already standing there, blocking the exit. It wasn’t a soldier. It wasn’t a cop either. It wasn’t even a someone. 

As Ana shrieked in fear and Matteo cried “SHIT! RUN!”, Izzy saw a flash of glowing pale skin and far too many arms. Next she knew, Matteo had somehow yanked her onto his back and slipped past the creature. He was barrelling through the corridor as fast as his legs would take him while she was gripping onto his shoulders for dear life.

The only reason she knew that Ana and Raul had made it out of the room, too, was that she could now hear Raul shrieking like a banshee right behind them. Ana was somehow still gasping comforting words over the shrieks in an entirely vain attempt to calm him.

In the panic the badge had ended up in Izzy’s hand. She was holding it so hard its sides were digging painfully into her hand but she didn’t think she could have let it go if she had wanted to. She was finding it harder and harder to hold onto Matteo’s back with her weak legs and one hand, but the badge was letting them burst through one liquid-like door after another - until they reached one more door, just as Izzy felt herself slipping from Matteo’s shoulders. Matteo lost his balance and crashed through the door opening. Izzy landed on him. A split second later she heard Raul’s screams and a foot collided with her side, knocking all the breath out of her. Then Ana came crashing down on her.

Izzy might have screamed in pain but she didn’t have enough air in her lungs. She was being crushed from all sides. She barely knew what was going on at all until the pile she was at the centre of suddenly disentangled and she was dragged to a shadowy corner of the room they were now in, behind a large shelf. 

It was the darkness that made her realise they were no longer in the same building as before - or at least it looked very different now. The odd lighting was now coming only through the doorway, this room seemed to have no light source of its own. The doors leading out were metal rather than liquid and everything looked very much like they had just stumbled into a secure, yet entirely ordinary, installation. They had to be underground now. They’d been running for ages, the glowing ball hadn’t been that big and there wasn’t anywhere to go but into the wall of the sinkhole.

But Izzy didn’t have time to think about it very much. Raul was still shrieking his lungs out and was now desperately trying to get away, get anywhere. Ana was barely holding onto him and had scratches and bite marks all over her face. She looked terrified as she tried to soothe her little brother. And even Matteo, unshakable Matteo, was huddling next to Izzy, whimpering: “What was that thing? What was that thing?”

“I don’t know, some sort of experiment gone wrong?” asked Izzy. “We’ve got to get out of here before …”

Three things happened simultaneously: The thing appeared in the doorway. The lights flipped on in the room. And an alarm siren went off. 

“No, no, please, no!” whimpered Ana as Raul’s shrieks picked up. It sounded like he was being tortured. Maybe he was. “Where are his headphones? He lost his headphones!”

But Izzy couldn’t think of headphones. She was staring at the monster. It was huge, twice the size of a person but skinny as a pole. It had what looked like six arms, but Izzy wasn’t sure because there were also two strange jointed limbs growing out of what should have been its face. Except there was no face. There was just an odd pattern of blood-red slime pooling in several hollows in the thing’s head. 

Izzy couldn’t scream. It felt as if she was choking on her own voice. But the thing’s scream was loud enough to almost drown out the sirens. It wasn’t really a scream, though. It was a noise like no other Izzy had ever heard, a hellish noise, like mixing the scratch of a nail on metal with the sizzling sound of flesh touching a hot pan. The thing threw up its arms and with one wild swipe it cleared off a shelf only steps from where the children were cowering.

“GET TO THE DOOR!” shrieked Matteo but he wasn’t following his own command. He tried to pull Izzy onto his back, but his face contorted with pain and he dropped her.

“Shit! Matteo!”

“I think I hurt my leg! Ana! You take her!”

“I - can’t - move!” gasped Ana.

Izzy whirled around. Ana was desperately trying to hold onto Raul who was kicking, biting, scratching and shrieking in terror and agony. Izzy had never seen him like this before. Ana already had a huge bleeding scratch all the way across her face and it looked like it wouldn’t be the last.

BANG! went another shelf.

“Matteo! Run! Open the door!” She pushed the badge into his hand. He stared at her in confusion.

“But…”

“We’ll follow! MOVE!” She was never going to reach that door before that beast reached them and neither were Ana and Raul from the looks of it, but Matteo might! She was going to be damned if he got himself hurt just to save her! 

Matteo was still standing paralysed, staring at Izzy.

“FUCKING MOVE!”

He ran. Or rather limped. The thing kept coming closer and he still hadn’t reached the door. It was practically within arm’s reach of them now - could it see them? Could it see at all? 

There! He was at the door! He was looking around for how to open it! He found a scanner at the side of the door and practically smashed the badge against it.

“Access denied,” a calm female voice said.

“No, no, no, no!” Matteo held the badge against the scanner again. Nothing changed. “It’s got to work, it’s got to!” 

But it didn’t. And the thing was next to them now, arms outstretched in a gesture of impending doom, slime flashing in angry reds, screeching at the top of its voice. And so was Raul who had fought his way out of Ana’s arms. Ana was lying on the ground bleeding. Raul was crying, covering his ears with his hands and bashing his head against a wall. Izzy wanted to help but she was too far away to hold him. And the thing was … wrapping its strange face antennae around its head and no longer moving. It looked like it was … tearing at its own skin? 

Izzy’s mouth dropped open. No way. No fucking way. This was a stupid idea and it would kill them for sure. But …

“Ana! Look!”

Ana looked up from where she was lying on the ground. 

“What …” Her eyes went wide. Her head turned from the thing to Raul and back to the thing again. She had spotted it, too. “It’s those fucking sirens! We have to turn them off!”

“We can’t!” shouted Izzy.

“Then we have to get them out of here to somewhere quiet. Back to the sinkhole or something!” 

“Matteo! Help me!” shouted Izzy as she crawled toward the thing. 

This was stupid. This was so very stupid. They were all tiny compared to that thing. What if she was wrong? Or if she was right but it freaked when they touched it? It would kill them! And she wouldn’t even be able to move it, anyway! But they had no way out! They had no choice!

Her heart was beating faster than it ever had before. The beat seemed to have taken over her entire body, pulsing in her ears, in her throat, in her stomach. She was within arm’s reach of the thing now. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from its terrifying face, the red slime pools in the pallor. She couldn’t see its mouth, but she could almost feel the sharp teeth it was bound to have clamping down on her head. 

Suddenly Matteo’s arms were there, pushing against what seemed to be the thing’s abdomen, the highest point he could reach. Izzy held her breath, expecting the thing to take a swipe at him. But it just stood there, clawing at its own face and then … slowly, very slowly, it took a step backwards. 

“That’s right,” Matteo mouthed. “That’s right. Keep walking.” 

Izzy looked over her shoulder to see that Ana had picked herself and Raul up and was now half-carrying, half-shepherding her brother toward the door.

Then they were walking along the corridor, back toward the entrance of the strange orb. The sirens were getting quieter, they seemed to only be sounding in the room at the back of the orb. 

It took what felt like an eternity to get away from the noise. Izzy’s arms were aching like hell from dragging herself along. Matteo was limping more and more with each step, but his eyes were focused only on the creature who was still stumbling ahead of them. It seemed to be less pale now. Its back had turned a light shade of blue right down the centre. Raul had stopped screaming and struggling. He was rocking back and forth in Ana’s arms. She could barely hold onto him and she looked ready to collapse, but she kept soldiering on.

They had nearly reached the entrance and the sirens were now a distant echo when the creature stopped walking. It unfolded its antennae from around its head and turned to face them.

Izzy gasped and grabbed Matteo by the leg. But the creature did not attack. Instead, it made a flourishing gesture with its many limbs and bowed its head. Izzy was surprised that the pools of slime did not drip. She was also surprised to see that they were no longer pulsing red. Instead, they had turned … purple? Blue? Green? They were cycling through a rainbow of colours so fast it made Izzy’s head spin. 

The creature placed one of its hands on a nearby door. It melted away to open a softly lit room. The light, like the creature itself, seemed to shift in colour, but the changes were so subtle that, rather than giving Izzy a headache, they seemed to slow her heartbeat. She noticed that she had been holding her breath only when she realised, with a gasp, that she could breathe again. The creature just stood there, looking at the children - or maybe it wasn’t doing that at all, it was hard to tell.

“Does it want us to go in?” whispered Matteo. 

But before Izzy could answer, Raul had made the decision for them. Something in the atmosphere of the room must have attracted him. He ran into the room, collapsed with his back to one of the oddly round walls, pulled his toy - how was he still carrying that? - out of a pocket and began to fiddle with it. Click - red - click - green - click - blue.

The creature followed him into the room, with Ana on its heels, who immediately positioned herself between her brother and the thing. The thing turned to Matteo and Izzy and made a gesture with its arms. It looked almost like it was beckoning them closer.

They could have run. Or at least Matteo could have tried. But of course he did not. Instead, he gave Izzy an encouraging nod and entered the room. Finally, Izzy, too, dragged herself inside.  
They watched as the creature folded its body into an odd shape on the ground, its limbs stretched in all directions and the place where its spine should have been strangely twisted. Maybe this was its way of sitting down? It looked nightmarish, but Izzy no longer had the energy to feel afraid. She could barely keep her eyes open.

The others seemed to feel similarly. Ana did not even move to stop the creature when it reached out toward Raul with one of its face limbs. She barely even flinched. Matteo made a half-hearted gesture, as if to reach out toward Raul, but when he saw the creature was only inspecting Raul’s toy, he sank back against the wall and, to Izzy’s great surprise, started to cry.

Izzy had never seen Matteo cry before. She wasn’t a very good comforter in the first place, but how did you comfort someone you thought never needed comforting at all? Finally, Izzy settled on scooting over to him and giving him a slightly awkward hug. He let his head drop onto her shoulder and continued to sob quietly.

Huddled up for warmth and comfort, they sat in the chilly room, listening to the sounds of Raul’s toy happily clicking away in the hands of Raul and the limbs of the creature.

\-------------------------------------

And that was how they found them a few minutes later - Matteo still crying softly on Izzy’s shoulder, Ana slumped against the wall in a haze of pain and exhaustion and the creature and Raul sitting on the floor playing peacefully.

Izzy heard them a split second before they burst in the door, but she barely had time to whisper “Shit, Mat-” before five guns were pointed in their faces by five soldiers in full riot gear and somebody yelled “GET ON THE FLOOR!” 

Izzy threw herself on the floor, hands over her head. She heard her friends screaming in fear and the creature’s unearthly sizzling screech. Then, for a split second, all she could hear was her own rapid breathing and her heartbeat.

A woman’s voice broke the silence: “What the fuck? Kids?” 

Then silence again. Too long. Too heavy. Izzy could not help it. She lifted her head ever so slightly to see what was happening. 

A grey-haired man had now stepped in front of the soldiers. Unlike the others, he was not in riot gear or armed. Instead, he was wearing some kind of grey uniform and holding a strange disc with several round screens. The screens kept flashing in different colours. Almost like the slime in the creature’s face. Izzy turned to the creature. It was now curled up like a bug, clasping its own limbs, but its face was pointed directly at the disc and - yes! - changing colours even more rapidly. Even the creature’s skin was now no longer pale, but vibrant with more hues than Izzy could name. 

The oppressive silence hung thick in the room. Why on earth was Raul not crying anymore? Where was he anyhow? He couldn’t have disappeared into thin air! But nobody cried. Nobody spoke. Nobody even breathed.

Then - “Tell them to lower their guns. … I said tell your men to lower their goddamn guns, you’re frightening our guest!”

“You heard him. Guns down,” commanded the woman’s gruff voice.

A flurry of movement followed. The soldiers continued to be a terrifying sight, but at least they were no longer pointing their guns at them. 

“Tell them to let the kid go,” said the same gruff voice from before and Izzy suddenly realised where Raul was. 

“They’re trying to protect the kid, you ignorant woman!”

“How dare you …”

“I don’t want humanity to become known for acting like a bull in a china shop. People like you will make us pariahs in this galaxy! Now shut up and let me do the talking!” 

The angry man fell silent and raised the communication device once more. It shifted through various shades of blue and purple. The creature responded, seemingly in kind, then unrolled to free Raul, who - to Izzy’s great surprise - looked a lot less ruffled than she had expected. He turned to the creature and raised his toy. Click - red. He held the toy up to the creature’s head and pointed at the soldiers with his other arm.

“What the…?” went the unarmed man, but he was interrupted by Ana who threw herself at her brother with a shout of relief: “RAUL!”

“Alright,” said the unarmed man. He seemed to be taking charge now, though he looked very flustered and kept staring at Raul with a look of suspicion and disbelief. “Alright. Now everyone sit up and let’s talk.”

Izzy felt Matteo next to her straighten himself out. She pushed herself into a sitting position, so she could look at the man properly. He was not much taller than Matteo, skinny, wore thick-rimmed glasses and was quite possibly the least dangerous-looking person Izzy had encountered in half a day. But the grim look on his face belied that impression.

“So,” the man crouched down to be on a level with Izzy and her friends, “let’s start from the beginning. Who are you and how did you get in here?” 

He was speaking slowly and softly, considering every word and was clearly trying to make his voice sound pleasant, but he wasn’t kidding anyone. The only time Izzy had heard a voice like that was from her mother’s lovers and when you heard that kind of voice you got the hell out before the wall smashing, hair pulling and punching started. Except now there was no way out and this guy was being backed up by five heavily armed soldiers. 

Izzy looked at Matteo, who turned away to look at Ana. Ana nodded. Matteo shook his head and whispered in Izzy’s ear: “We can’t tell them. They’ll kill me.”

“They’ll kill us if we don’t,” whispered Ana who had scooted closer.

“We’re screwed either way,” whispered Izzy.

“I asked you a question,” said the man and his voice was now a lot less pleasant, “and I would appreciate an answer. How did you get in here? Who sent you? Please don’t make this harder on all of us.”

“Promise you won’t kill us,” Izzy blurted out and immediately felt very stupid. What use was a promise that they could go back on anytime they wished? What use was provoking them by demanding one?

The man’s eyebrows rose up to meet his hairline. He considered Izzy for a moment, then said: “I promise we’re not going to kill you. Now please, why are you here and how did you get in?”

Izzy, Matteo and Ana exchanged another glance. Raul never looked up. He was fiddling with his toy again, half-hidden behind the back of the creature, but Izzy had a strong feeling he was listening to every word. The man kept throwing glances at him, even though he was now addressing the older children.

“You!” the man pointed at Izzy. “Go ahead, you can tell me.”

Izzy took a deep breath and began. She told them all about how Matteo had discovered the orb, how they had finally decided to climb down into the sinkhole to get a closer look, how they had fallen …

The gruff-voiced woman interrupted them: “Urgh! The piece-of-shit crew transportation system activated, didn’t it? I told you!”

“It’s not a piece of shit, it’s a piece of highly sophisticated machinery and any malfunction…”

“‘Just land it in the sinkhole, it’ll be hidden, nobody will notice.’ I told you lot this was a security breach waiting to happen!”

“Well, where were they supposed to land then, according to you? Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere so they would feel truly welcomed on our planet? In the middle of the city where we can’t control who’ll make contact with them and how? Some of us try to avoid mass panics and diplomatic incidents!”

“Yeah, and what a great job you’ve done!” said the woman, waving her gloved hand at Izzy and her friends.

The man frowned: “So you’re telling me you ended up here by accident?”

Izzy, Matteo and Ana nodded in unison. 

The man turned to the creature and flashed a rapid sequence of greens and yellows. The creature replied, shifting colours so quickly that Izzy lost track within seconds, but she could see Raul’s eyes were glued to the creature, even as his hands were fiddling with his toy. Click-click-click.

The man turned to the soldiers: “Well, we have no indication that these children are lying. It really looks like they just stumbled in here - which is impossible! The transport system doesn’t work that way. It’s not proximity-based! It shouldn’t be pulling anyone down here who isn’t with our team just because they happen to be close enough! We’ve been working on integrating our systems for weeks, we’ve been going through their technology with a fine-tooth comb! We can’t have missed a malfunction that huge!”

“Well, clearly your liaison team is lacking in competence!” 

Izzy had no idea what ‘liaison’ meant but the way the woman said it, it had to be a pretty bad insult. 

The man, however, did not react. Instead, he turned to the creature and flashed some more colours at it. The creature watched for a moment, then responded, slowly this time. Greens shifted into yellows, into blues, into purples. Its entire form was changing colour. The man’s eyes widened. He seemed to be growing paler with each - word?

He turned to the soldiers: “Our guest says the children had an access badge. The transport system must have thought they were our people. They were using the badge to open doors in here at random. That’s what set off the internal ship alarm, so our guest went to check what was going on and …”

But the woman was no longer listening. With one long stride she reached Izzy, grabbed her by the arm and growled: “Show me the badge!”

Izzy looked around feverishly. She’d had it. But then they’d entered the room and Izzy had no idea what had happened to the badge since then.

“I … I don’t know where it went,” she stammered.

“So you had it! You had a badge! Who gave it to you?” The woman was so furious now that spittle was flying from her lips as she shouted, landing on Izzy’s face. Izzy would have been disgusted if she hadn’t been so terrified. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the gun in the woman’s holster.

The creature gave off an angry screech and made to get up.

“Leitao! Simmer down! You’re causing a scene!”

But the woman ignored him. “Where did you get the badge?” she hissed at Izzy.

Izzy’s eyes darted to Matteo, who was cowering next to her, pale and shaking, with tears running down his face. 

“We … we found it!”

“BULLSHIT!” shouted the woman and squeezed Izzy’s arm so hard that her sore muscles screamed in protest. “Someone gave it to you! Someone knows we’re here and is trying to sabotage us.”

“LET HER GO! YOU’RE HURTING HER!” shouted Ana. “LEAVE HER ALONE!”

“Really, Leitao, you have no evidence of that.”

“I’M NOT BUYING A WORD OF YOUR BULLSHIT! THE LITTLE BRAT SPEAKS THEIR LANGUAGE! YOU KNEW WE WERE HERE! WHO SENT YOU? WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

Izzy saw the creature rolling itself around Raul again, just as the little boy raised his hands to cover his ears.

The woman squeezed even harder. Izzy thought she felt something crack. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“STOP!” screamed Matteo, jumping to his feet. “I stole the badge! I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know … She had nothing to do with it, leave her alone. It’s all my fault.”

The woman was so baffled she dropped Izzy’s arm. “You … stole … how … from who?”

“Cristiano Rey, apparently,” said the unarmed man, bending down and picking up something that looked very much like the badge from the floor. 

“Rey? But…”

“So unless you want to claim that one of your own men - who you incidentally assured me were all one-hundred percent reliable - is aiming to infiltrate us…”

“No…”

“... and is, for some inexplicable reason using a group of clueless street urchins to do so, when he already has access to this facility and all that is in it, you’d better stop jumping to conclusions and let the children tell us what happened.”

“How … HOW?” The woman now seemed to be struggling to find words as she screamed at Matteo, but Matteo was in hysterics. He couldn’t have answered anyway. Izzy sidled over and grabbed him by the arm.

“We …” Her throat felt all clogged, so she cleared it with a loud cough. “We didn’t know he was important!” She could feel her voice shaking! If only it did not break on her before she could defend Matteo! “He was just some guy showing off at a party and we got annoyed at him, so Matteo grabbed his wallet and that’s where the badge was! I swear we didn’t know anything about anything! We thought he was just some rich guy slumming it!”

The woman stared at her, wide-eyed. She flinched as the man started to laugh.

“Oh, this is beautiful. What were you saying about my team being incompetent again, Leitao! It seems you have very little oversight of what your men get up to when they are not under your supervision.”

For a moment, the woman glared at Matteo in silence. Her mouth opened and closed again. 

She hissed: “You sneaky little…” and her hand shot to her holster. Matteo cried out in fear.  
The creature flashed bright red, unrolled from around Raul and reared up to its full, impressive size. 

“LEITAO!” shouted the man. “LEAVE!”

The woman did not move. Her face was deadly pale as she pointed the gun at Matteo. She seemed not to have heard the man.

“LEITAO! THAT IS AN ORDER! LEAVE!” 

Finally, the woman turned to him with a look of utter loathing in her eyes. She lowered the gun. 

“And take your men with you before someone gets hurt. I expect you to investigate the security leak and prevent any future problems. And make no mistake about it, I will be reporting your behaviour to headquarters!”

“Yes, sir,” grumbled the woman, still glaring. Then she and the other armed soldiers disappeared as quickly as they had come.

\-------------------------------------

As the door melted close behind them, the man stood by it muttering more to himself than to anyone else in the room: “I hate having to pull rank on her, but she goes too far.”

He turned to the creature once more and there was a brief exchange of flashing colours between them. Next to her, Raul was doing his best to copy the patterns with his toy. He was so focused he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Izzy tried to watch the exchange, but she could not for the life of her make any sense of it. Besides, her head was feeling so fuzzy it was hard to concentrate at all. Her eyelids were so heavy now she could barely keep them open. 

A soft whimper made her look up once more.

“Matteo? Are you okay?”

“Don’t look!” he sobbed, but Izzy had already spotted the dark stain forming on the front of his trousers.

“I’ve …”

“It’s okay, that bitch pointed her gun straight at your head, anyone would’ve,” whispered Izzy, but Matteo didn’t seem like he was taking it in. He might not have heard her. Izzy wasn’t entirely sure whether she had spoken at all, her voice seemed strangely quiet even inside her own head.

The man sighed: “Well, you lot have caused a hell of a mess, haven’t you? I’m going to call you some medical assistance,” he turned to Matteo, “and get you some clean clothes and then we’ll figure out what to do with you. Name’s Doctor Courval, by the way. And you are?”

None of the children answered. Ana was whispering words of comfort at Raul, who was still fiddling with the toy, occasionally waving it in front of the face of the creature. Matteo was huddled in a puddle of his own piss and seemed unable to move or to stop sobbing and Izzy - Izzy felt like she was miles away from everything, watching her friends and herself through a slightly smudged and very thick window. 

Everything seemed strange and unreal and it wasn’t just because she was sitting a couple of feet from a creature straight from her worst nightmares and that creature was apparently now friends with her friend’s brother. They could have died tonight. They still might, judging by that ominous undertone in Doctor Courval’s voice. It wasn’t like death was a stranger around these parts. Izzy had seen more dead people than she could count - shot or stabbed or dead of drug overdoses or simply of a flu or stomach bug. It happened. But this was the first time she had been this close to death herself. 

Izzy wasn’t scared anymore. She just wasn’t much of anything else either. She barely even noticed when the medical staff that the doctor had called came in and started to examine her and her friends.

There was another woman, too, not a medic, judging by the uniform she was wearing and she was talking with animated gestures to the doctor but even though they were in the same room, Izzy could no longer hear a word they were saying. Her mind seemed to be shutting down on her. With one last glance at her friends, she allowed herself to drift away.

\-------------------------------------

“Hey! Hey, little girl!”

Izzy snapped awake. Had she fallen asleep?

“Ah, good, she’s awake, too. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Isabella Martín,” replied Izzy, sleepily, much too tired to protest against the patronising nickname. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around.

They were still in the same room, but she wasn’t lying on the ground anymore. Somebody must have lifted her onto a soft pad. A bag of ice had been placed on her wrist where the woman had grabbed her. Ana and Raul were lying snuggled up next to her. Ana’s face was covered in band-aids, Raul had fallen asleep. On her other side, one of the medics was wrapping a bandage around Matteo’s ankle. He made eye contact with Izzy and smiled.

“Alright! Now you just make sure you keep off that foot for a few days and you’ll be just fine,” the medic told Matteo. “And all of you should take it easy for a while, you’ve had a pretty big shock. I’m just going to go ask Doctor Courval when we can send you lot home.”

“Did you hear? They’re going to send us home!” whispered Matteo. 

“I don’t think that guy really has a say …” Ana began but Izzy put her finger to her lips and hissed: “Shh!”

Just a few feet away, Doctor Courval was talking to the woman from before and the medic. The creature was standing nearby, gesturing with colourful limbs. This time, Izzy made herself listen.

“Well, we’ve got to make a decision. Their families will be missing them soon, if they aren’t already.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” responded the medic, “at least the older boy mentioned that he lives alone and the others don’t look exceptionally well cared for either.”

“Why’d you tell him that, dumbass?” hissed Ana. “They’ll make us disappear if they think nobody will miss us!”

“Shut up!” hissed Izzy and Ana fell silent. 

“... them telling everyone about what they saw.”

“But what’s the alternative? We can’t just chuck them in a cell and throw away the key! They’re children! Besides, the public will be told sooner or later,” Doctor Courval said, as he ran a hand nervously through his thinning hair. 

“Well, this is precisely how first contact with the public was not supposed to go,” replied the woman. “A decade of planning, all down the drain at the hands of a single badly disciplined soldier and a bunch of nosy kids.”

“Quite frankly, Raquel, this went a lot better than expected. You’d expect these kids to be gibbering wrecks. I mean …” Doctor Courval waved vaguely in the direction of the creature, flashed some colours, then turned back to his colleague. “You remember my reaction when I first saw our guest.”

Whatever his reaction had been, it had apparently been quite funny, as the woman named Raquel snorted. Courval smiled.

“And yet these kids somehow managed to communicate with them enough to figure out our alarm was hurting them - we didn’t even realise that would be a problem and we’ve been trying to figure out each other’s quirks for months now! And they not only figured it out but were also brave enough to do something about it. When we found them, that little boy over there was trying to speak to them. Speak to them! From what we can tell, none of these children knew of the existence of extraterrestrials before they stumbled into our facilities and there they are, trying to learn our guest’s language.”

“Fucking hell,” muttered Ana, looking at her brother in awe. “So you were really speaking to that thing? You don’t even talk to us!”

“Shut up!” hissed Izzy.

“It’s simply...” said Raquel.

“... incredible. Yes, yes, it is. If even half of our people were this composed we would be making intergalactic treaties by now, not hiding our new arrivals in sinkholes!”

The doctor and the woman looked at each other, then back at the children, then back at each other. 

“No, you can’t be thinking…”

“Well, it’s worth a try…”

“Their families…”

“... could be convinced. If they even have families.”

“But if the kids don’t want to…”

“Oh, come on, have you seen what’s at the top of the sinkhole? It’s not like they have options!”

“I’ll call headquarters.”

\-------------------------------------

As the sun came up over the shacks they called home, Izzy, Matteo, Ana and Raul found themselves waiting in a van, listening to Doctor Courval and his colleague discussing their fate with Ana’s and Raul’s grandmother.

“That’s all fine and good, but I can’t afford to have her running off to some fancy private school, just because you lot have taken a liking to her.”

“We will be paying all of her expenses of course.”

“Hah, but who’ll be paying me for the losses I make trying to run my business on my own and taking care of the boy.”

“Oh, you misunderstand. We want the boy, too.”

“Him? Oh, I can just about buy that Ana’s got some brains in that head of hers but the boy is an idiot, what do you want to teach him for?”

In the van, Ana flinched and threw a worried glance at Raul. Raul, however, seemed not to have heard his grandmother. He was concentrating on a little toy that Izzy had never seen before. At a second glance, she recognised a smaller version of Doctor Courval’s disc.

“Oh, please, ma’am, let us worry about that.” 

They watched as Doctor Courval extended a hand holding a wad of cash to the grandmother. It was more money than Izzy had ever seen in her life. The grandmother’s eyes went wide. She grabbed the money before Doctor Courval could rethink his decision: “Alright! Take them!”

They went to Izzy’s mum next. Izzy waited in the car with the others as the two adults entered the shack, but it took no more than five minutes before Izzy’s mum came running to the car, tears streaming down her face, and ripped open the door. She looked like a mess, thick mascara dripping down her cheeks. Doctor Courval and his colleague were following her, both looking slightly awkward, still holding their badges, which they had probably shown her mother to prove they were officials, not murderous maniacs.

“Is it true? They want to take you away?”

She pulled Izzy out of the car to give her a tight hug. Izzy’s legs dangled uselessly.

“Ouch, mum! My arm!”

“They want to take my baby away.”

“Ma’am, we are asking, not demanding. If you say no, your daughter will stay here with you. But think about it. Think of what we could give her! An education! Countless opportunities!”

“She’s fragile! She needs her mother!”

Izzy was too smothered against her mother’s chest to point out that that hadn’t been true in years and that her mother was well aware of that. If she needed her mum to survive, she would have starved to death years ago.

“Ma’am, we promise, if you let your daughter go with us, we will take good care of her.”

“But her legs!”

“It is your daughter’s mind we’re interested in. Her legs are irrelevant.” said Doctor Courval. “We can provide her with any assistive technology she might need.” 

Izzy pulled her face away from her mother to frown at the doctor: “Like robot legs you mean?”

She tried to imagine herself walking on the sleek, shiny legs she had seen on that soldier at the party, but somehow she could not create the image in her mind. The person before her mind’s eye did not look anything like herself, no matter how hard she tried.

The doctor laughed. “Well, I was thinking a wheelchair and some proper crutches for starters, but we can certainly discuss cybernetic enhancements as you get older.”

“Yeah, I think I’d like that,” muttered Izzy.

Izzy’s mother looked down at her daughter, swallowed noisily and then sniffed: “Maybe they are right. You deserve more than I can give you. I haven’t been a very good mother, have I?”

“That’s not true! You’re a good mum!” said Izzy and she meant it. She couldn’t forget Ana’s face when her grandmother had simply sold her. She wondered what they had told her mum about the “school” they wanted to take her to.

“It’s not like she’ll be gone from your life. Once the children have settled in properly, she can come visit you every holiday, if you want.”

“I can?”

“Of course you can.”

“Cool! And I’ll write to you all the time once I’ve learned how to! Promise!” said Izzy.

“So you really want to go then,” said Izzy’s mum. She wasn’t crying now. Her face was set. 

Izzy pulled herself away from her mum and leaned against the door of the van to look at the shack which she had called home for her entire life. She thought of lonely nights, of hungry days and of the disgusting things her mum had to do to feed and clothe her. She turned to her friends who were waiting in the car. If she stayed and they left, there would be nothing here for her but to weigh down her mother and make both of them miserable.

“Yeah, I really want to go.”

Her mother smiled, but it was a watery smile: “Then I won’t stop you.”

“Will you be okay?”

“Of course I’ll be okay, silly. You just make sure you study hard and don’t give your teachers any trouble.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Before she knew what was happening to her, her mother had pulled her into a rib-breaking hug. 

Everything went very fast after that. In no time at all they were driving along the road that Matteo usually walked on when he went into town to work. Izzy turned around to watch the shacks grow smaller in the distance.

The two adults were blabbering at them from the front seats.

“Of course, we don’t usually recruit children, but we’ll find you some private tutors and you’ll be part of our team in no time at all. I suppose we’ll have to teach you about proper secrecy, if you want to interact with civilians...”

But Izzy was barely listening to them at all. She was watching Matteo, who was looking out the back of the van, biting his lip so hard it would surely start to bleed any second now.

“Everything okay?” 

Matteo turned to her. His eyes were shimmering with tears.

“Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to leave,” he whispered. 

“Don’t worry,” said Ana, “it’ll be better where we’re going. For all of us.” She patted Raul on the shoulder.

“How do you know?” snapped Matteo.

“Well, it can’t be worse, can it? Hey, we’ll get to go to an actual school! We’ll get to learn things besides how to do an inventory! You guys will learn how to read! Izzy won’t have to be carried like a baby anymore! Besides, we’ll probably meet more aliens. We’ll get to see more stuff than even the rich people in the city do! It will be amazing.”

“It’ll be different,” muttered Matteo.

“Well, yeah, they’re aliens. Of course it’ll be different,” said Ana, grinning. 

As the shacks and the ruins of the Azevedo finally faded from sight, there was silence in the backseat - until Matteo turned to whisper in Izzy’s ear.

“Izzy?”

“Yeah?”

And as they entered the city proper with its huge, well-maintained arcologies and Izzy began to wonder which building housed the secret government facility, she heard Matteo’s voice. It was terrified, more terrified even than it had been when he had been convinced they were about to die: “Izzy, what if I don’t know how to do different?”


End file.
